Records on the board, flat futures, and a Fed paper trail due at 2 p.m.

Wall Street goes into Wednesday with two fresh records behind it and very little conviction in front of it. Index futures spent the overnight session within a whisker of unchanged. S&P 500 futures were up a few hundredths of a percent, Dow futures were down by a similar sliver to about 0.14%, and Nasdaq 100 futures moved between a small gain and a 0.18% loss depending on which hour the quote was taken. The direction is not the story this morning. The calendar is.

Two events will do most of the talking: a 10-year Treasury note auction and, at 2 p.m. ET, the minutes of the Federal Reserve's September 15-16 meeting. That was the meeting at which policymakers raised rates for the first time since 2023, lifting the federal funds target range to 3.75%-4.00%.

Where Tuesday left things

Tuesday's session gave the bulls what Monday had only half delivered. The S&P 500 gained 45 points, or 0.58%, to close at 7,818.93, its first finish above 7,800 and an all-time closing high. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.45% to 27,599.79, a second straight record close. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.49% to 51,521.28 and remains a little more than 5% below the closing high it set on August 5. Feeds disagreed by a few hundredths at the bell, with Reuters' final tally showing 7,818.95 for the S&P 500 and 51,521.04 for the Dow.

Chip stocks did much of the lifting. Marvell Technology rose 5.8% after raising its long-term revenue outlook, and AMD gained 2.8%. Of the S&P 500's 11 sectors, every group except healthcare finished higher, with utilities leading the way on the nuclear power rally covered in yesterday's close.

The record came with a caveat that is worth keeping in mind. On the Nasdaq, advancing and declining stocks were close to evenly split, so the index's new high leaned heavily on a short list of very large companies.

The bond market took back Tuesday's relief

Part of what helped stocks on Tuesday was a break in the selling of Treasuries. The 10-year yield had touched a 24-year high on Monday before easing during Tuesday's session. Overnight, that relief mostly reversed. CNBC reported the benchmark 10-year up about three basis points to 5.307%, the 30-year up about four basis points to 5.69%, and the two-year up about one basis point to 4.801%. Trading Economics had the 10-year steady around 5.31%.

That matters for today's auction. A 10-year note sale with yields this close to their highest level since 2002 is a direct test of demand: either buyers find these levels attractive, or they ask for an even bigger premium to take on long-dated government debt. Analysts quoted across several outlets have pointed to the same pressures behind the climb, including sticky inflation, larger federal deficits and heavy borrowing tied to artificial intelligence spending.

A rate decision moves the short end of the curve. An auction tells you what investors want to be paid to lend for a decade.

What to look for in the minutes

The minutes do not contain a new decision; they are a detailed record of a meeting that already happened. Their value is in the texture: how many officials wanted to move, how many argued against it, and what inflation readings would justify another increase before the end of the year.

Rate futures already lean one way for this month. CME's FedWatch tool shows roughly a 78% to 80% chance that the Fed leaves rates unchanged at its October 27-28 meeting, according to figures cited by CNBC and Trading Economics. Several officials have sounded less urgent about another move since softer-than-expected inflation and jobs data last week. Strategists at ING, writing on Wednesday, argued that the scope for a dovish surprise in the minutes looks limited given how hawkish the September projections were.

For a market sitting at records, the minutes are less about October than about the rest of the year. A record that confirms a committee open to another hike would put fresh weight on the same long-term yields that stocks shrugged off on Tuesday.

Oil is back above $100

Crude added another layer to the inflation question overnight. Brent futures rose about 1% to roughly $101.5 a barrel and US benchmark West Texas Intermediate climbed back above $90, as a strengthening storm in the Gulf of Mexico threatened US offshore production and attacks between Saudi Arabia and Yemen's Houthis continued. We cover the storm in detail in a separate piece this morning.

The rest of Wednesday's calendar

Times are Eastern:

• 8:00 a.m. — Constellation Brands holds its earnings call after reporting results on Tuesday evening.
• 10:30 a.m. — The Energy Information Administration's weekly petroleum status report.
• Afternoon — The Treasury's 10-year note auction.
• 2:00 p.m. — Minutes of the September 15-16 FOMC meeting.
• 3:00 p.m. — August consumer credit from the Federal Reserve.
• After the close — Earnings from Levi Strauss and Applied Digital.

Looking further out, September consumer price data is scheduled for October 14, and third-quarter earnings season begins next Tuesday with a group of large financial companies.

The bottom line

The setup this morning is a market that has priced a lot of good news and is now waiting on two bond-market events to see whether that pricing holds. Futures are flat because nobody wants to front-run either one. The levels to keep in mind are the ones Tuesday set: 7,818.93 on the S&P 500 and a 10-year yield hovering around 5.30%.